Laptop, win XP and midi

[Paul881]

Hi. I have just got a win xp laptop and installed Sonar on it. The l/top has a Yamaha ac-xg internal soundcard. How can I write midi to Sonar using the laptop qwerty keyboard? The Yammie soundcard doesn't seem to support MIDI. If so, does that mean I need to buy a specific USB midi interface card that will enable midi ins and outs?

And if I want to use soundfonts with my midi device, how is this done on a laptop? I use a soundblaster and a Delta 66 in my regular DAW so thats not a problem. Its only when I come to the laptop that I'm struggling to find a workable solution.

[knightfly]

I haven't installed Sonar yet, still using cake9 until the new DAW becomes reality - should be similar menus, hopefully. Have you Profiled your hardware in Sonar yet? This needs to be done so Sonar knows what you have and what it's capable of. Not sure where this is in Sonar, check your help index. Also, in cake you can click on Options/Midi devices, and you get a chart of in's and outs. The one you want needs to be moved to the top of the chart to be the default. Choose your Yamaha internal as default.

Under Options/instruments, there is a virtual patch bay. You need to connect these to what you want and check the box marked "save changes for next session"

Hopefully one of these will help. I have a hard time believing that they would put a non-MIDI compatible soundcard in any laptop; I'm more inclined to thing there's a small setup problem... Steve

[Paul881]

Thanks for the reply Steve. Actually, when I go to Options>midi, there is no input device listed and for outs, all I got is microsoft midi mapper. In Options>Instruments, I got loads of outputs to select from.....but no inputs listed to connect them to. The soundcard is a Yamaha ac-xg laptop card. I haven't tried to play an imported midi file with it yet, I'll do that tomorrow lunchtime (its bedtime here in England now).

[knightfly]

Check for devices in the Multimedia section of system properties - if there's no midi devices listed I( think that's where they'd be, look around) you may need to install drivers for that part of your soundcard. A lot of soundcards use the joystick port to give one Midi in, and one out. Just a couple of places to look... Steve